Unveiling "Millennium Report", "We The Peoples"

Unveiling "Millennium Report", Annan outlines UN's agenda
for 21st century 3 April -- Calling for concerted
efforts to make globalization work for all nations,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan today unveiled a
forward-looking report that outlines the main challenges
facing the United Nations in the twenty-first century and
sketches out an action plan for addressing them.

Entitled
"We the Peoples: the Role of the United Nations in the 21st
Century", the report was prepared in advance of the
Millennium Summit of the UN next September, which is
expected to be the largest-ever gathering of world leaders.

"Let us not forget that our Organization was founded on
the theme of "We, the Peoples" - the words I have chosen as
the title of my Report," the Secretary-General said this
morning as he presented his "Millennium Report" at a plenary
meeting of the General Assembly. "We are at the service of
the world's people, and we must listen to them. They are
telling us that our past achievements are not enough. They
are telling us we must do more, and do it better."

It was
in an effort to bring closer a practical realization of
those goals, Mr. Annan said, that he decided to present a
set of proposals that the world leaders could then decide on
when they assemble in New York next September.

"Their
peoples would be gravely disappointed if they simply came
here, made a few speeches, and went away again. They need to
agree on the most urgent tasks we face together, and to
adopt a strategy for carrying them out," he said.

Calling
the report "resolutely forward-looking," the
Secretary-General told a news conference at UN Headquarters
today that it contained "some pretty alarming facts,"
particularly on the environment, and also "some pretty
shaming ones," particularly in the section on poverty.

"It shows that the world has been far too tolerant of
gross injustice and human misery, and it argues that we have
to change that," the Secretary-General said of the report,
in which he groups key global issues under three main
headings: freedom from want, freedom from fear, and the
freedom of future generations to sustain their lives on this
planet. The threat to the latter freedom is especially
troubling, Mr. Annan said, as he urged diplomats and
political leaders to pay special attention to the part of
his report that describes "plundering our children's
heritage to pay for our present unsustainable
practices."

At the same time, Mr. Annan stressed that the
report was by no means "all gloom and doom," pointing to the
"amazing progress" the world had made in the last
half-century on many fronts, especially in the field of new
technology.

On a practical plane, the report urges nations
to commit themselves to an ambitious 21st century agenda,
which includes, among others, such clearly defined goals as
cutting in half by 2015 the proportion of people living in
extreme poverty; ensuring that by 2015 all children complete
primary education; reducing HIV infection rates for persons
15-24 years old by 25 per cent within 10 years; and
cancelling all official debts of the heavily indebted
countries in return for those countries making demonstrable
commitments to poverty reduction.

In the report, the
Secretary-General also announced four new initiatives,
including a consortium of high-tech volunteer groups from
industrialized countries, called the UN Information
Technology Service, to train groups in developing nations in
the uses and opportunities of the Internet and information
technology. In his statement to the Assembly, Mr. Annan said
such initiatives underscored the crucial role of the private
sector and the vital need to form partnerships to make the
most of new technology.

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